Your dead wrong here. Give me a tee every time and i can guarantee you I'll shoot under 80 just about every time. Thats my game though, i may be wrong for other players. Some people chip well, some people drive well, some people putt well. For me, I can drive between 250-290 every single time, and generally keep it in the fairway. My main problem is hitting long 180-220 yard approaches. You give me a tee from that distance and I'll put it on the green. A 220 yard 3 iron is 10x easier for me off the tee. I am not making a comparison to pool here. All i am saying is that if you had a 180 yard approach from the deep rough, 90% of the lousy golfers out there are going to try and hit a long iron, catch the hosel, twist the club, and hit a worm burner right, left, who know maybe in the fairway. Hell, even if they manage to catch it fairly clean and get it near the green you are generally still gonna mishit it enough to be in the rough near the green. I dunno about you, but I don't play those shots that well. Saying chipping 10-20 yards was an error though. If they pulled out thier pitching wedge, chipped to 100 yards, then made an accurate approach from there you would start seeing better scores. As an example ill tell you a little story: A friend and I were gambling for $1 a hole like we always do (i keep the betting low with good friends). Anyways, he hits it a little longer than i do, so after 2 shots on a par 5 i was 100 yards out and he was about 20 yards out. He was laughing it up and bragging about his shot, so i told him, i like my position better than his. He laughed at me and called bullshit. I said lets add $5 to this hole. He agrees. I make my shot from 100 yards and land it about 8 feet away stopping dead. He hits his 20 yard shot, lands it in front of the pin and rolls it 20 feet past. I one putt, he 2 putts, i win. That is not an exact example of chipping for better position rather than attempting a difficult long shot, but being a 100 yards out for birdy on a par 4 after chipping out is not the worst position to be in. Seriously, i don't know how well you play golf, but most people fail at the game trying to hit tough to impossible shots, over and over, instead of chipping out. This strategy may not work for everyone, but it works for me. You ever score a 10 on a hole? Do you remember why? IT is generally that 1 bad shot you hit followed by 3 others, when you could have made a 50-100 yard chip and hit the green next shot. I'm not saying never hit a shot from the rough, but when you get a deep lie or you hampered by branches, or generally in a very tough position, chipping out is the way to go. Playing skins games, this is not always the case, but in stroke play, it almost always is.
I agree that gold is harder, as far as swing mechanics, and all that other stuff, but i bet that if i put more time on the golf course than on the pool table i would see results much much faster.
Also think about this. In the pool stroke, if you have any deficiency, even if your a good player, trying to fix your stroke is a matter of changing things a tiny tiny tiny tiny bit, to just get a slightly better stroke. In golf, if you have a bad swing, there are so many more different things you can do to improve it. With enough time on the driving range, you can figure out, how to not come over the top, or how not to turn your shoulders early, or move your feet a little here a little there, and get things worked out in a fairly short period of time, to wear you can be shooting under 90. The way i look at it is this. If you took 100 people that have never picked up a club, and gave them 100 hours of training each, it would be easier to get to the top 5% of that group for me, than 100 people that have never picked up a pool cue, and given 100 hours of training.
honestly, if golf didnt cost so much money, it would be easier for me to get good at then pool.
Another way to look at it is this. In golf you can try and hit the ball with all your might and you might miscue and hit the ball 50 yards away from where you were aiming, but you still have a shot, still have a chance at par, and if not its just a bogey anyways. In pool, if you miss shape by an inch, you could be hooked, you could have a difficult angle, it could screw you up 3 shots later. You generally have to be MORE PERFECT in pool.
